From April 2014 practice have been contractually required to promote and offer patients the opportunity to book appointments online, order repeat prescriptions online and gain access to their medical records online.
They will also be expected to include the NHS number as the primary patient identifier in all clinical correspondence, provide an automated upload of their summary information on at least a daily basis to the Summary Care Record and use the ‘GP2GP’ facility to transfer patient records between practices.
If practices can’t meet the latter two obligations yet, they can publish a plan of how they expect to be able to do them this time next year instead. However, according to updates from the three leading providers, practices on the latest versions of these systems can start all this work now.
| EMIS Web | TPP SystmOne (all versions) | INPS Vision (all versions) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Onlin appointmentfunctionality | Patient Access allows patients to quickly and easily book and cancel online GP appointments via a desktop, laptop or Smartphone. | The SystmOne GP module provides free access to an online application for patients, SystmOnline. | This functionality is available to all Vision practices. |
| Online repeat prescription ordering | Online repeat prescriptions are the most popular Patient Access service, with over 328,000 requests every month. | The ability to allow patients to request repeat prescription may also be enabled by a System Administrator within Organisation Preferences > SystmOnline. | This functionality is available to all Vision practices today as part of Vision’s online services; online repeat prescription ordering has been activated in approx. 65% of our practices. |
| Patient access to the Summary CareRecord (SCR) | The new Patient Access Medical Record Viewer is being rolled out and due to complete by the end of Q2 2014. | Patients can access their SystmOne patient record via SystmOnline. | This functionality is currently being tested and will be available to all Vision practices from May 2014 as part of Vision’s online services. |
| GP access to the SCR | The system is fully compliant with SCR requirements. Practices can upload date on core medication, allergies and adverse reactions to the patient’s SCR. Particularly useful in an emergency is the ability to view the SCR for non-regular registered or temporary patients. | There is a SCR node within the patient record that GPs can use to access the record. GPs must have patient consent if the patient in question has not registered to the practice using a GMS1. | Vision is fully compliant with SCR requirements and has successfully implemented in SCR in 75% of practices. |
| GP access to GP2GP to transfer new records | The system is fully compliant with GP2GP requirements. | SystmOne is fully compliant with GP2GP version 1.1. | Vision is fully compliant with GP2GP requirements and has successfully deployed GP2GP in 90% of practices. |
| NHS number as the primary identifier in all clinical correspondence | Patients’ NHS numbers are the primary identifier for all correspondence and is included on all correspondence in the system. | Within SystmOne, the NHS number is the primary patient identifier on (but not limited to) any letters, referrals, tasks created that refer to the patient, forms, labels, views, and prescriptions. | The NHS number is the primary identifier in all clinical correspondence produced by the Vision clinical system. |
